New York Times Op-Ed Admits That Traditional America is “Most Likely a Thing of the Past”
Evan James
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Leftist New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow published an opinion piece Sunday saying that four types of migration are threatening to upend traditional American culture and identity.
Blow believes that the four kinds of migration which have the potential to permanently reshape the United States “culturally, economically and politically” are climate migration, mass legal immigration, millennial urbanization, and the migration of blacks back to the South.
He first cites a New York Times Magazine report that claims almost half the country could experience “a decline in the quality of their environment, namely more heat and less water,” and that by 2070 “at least four million Americans could find themselves living at the fringe, in places decidedly outside the ideal niche for human life.” This will not just impact the United States, but many other countries around the world, and because of this Blow predicts that “millions of climate migrants” will come to US shores over the next few decades.
As for mass legal immigration, immigrants and their children are slated to become 36 percent of the US population by 2065, according to the Pew Research Center. By that time the population of the United States could be 441 million, and given the birthrates of immigrants and their children, a whopping 88 percent of the increase could be linked to them alone.
It’s also no secret that the overwhelming majority of these immigrants will be Hispanics and Asians. If current trends hold, white Americans will become a minority by 2040 or 2045. Furthermore, Asians are on pace to outnumber blacks and the Hispanic population may eventually double up the black population.
The third and fourth types of migration are taking place within the borders of the United States itself: urbanization from younger generations and the reverse migration of blacks back to the South. Younger people leaving small towns for big cities has been happening for several years now, but the main drivers of this phenomenon are millennials, and they show no signs of slowing the trend.
Blow finally predicts that the reverse migration of blacks to the South from the North, Midwest, and West will “only continue and intensify” over the coming years. In 2011, the Times reported that the percentage of blacks living in the South hit its highest point in 50 years. The report also found that younger and more educated blacks are looking for opportunities in other parts of the country because of declining northeastern and midwestern cities.
Blow concludes his piece by stating that “we may well be on the verge of a New America, a reshuffled United States, in which power, to some degree is redistributed and exercised by emerging power players and power centers.”
“America as we have come to know it is likely a thing of the past. Migratory movements have continually reshaped this country and that trend shows no signs of ending,” he added.
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